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Researchers say reef green zones work

Scientists say they now have proof that green zones on the Great Barrier Reef increase fish numbers.

Professor Garry Russ from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies says coral trout and snapper fingerlings can travel up to 30 kilometres from where they were spawned.

He says studies in the Keppel Islands off central Queensland shows closed areas do work.

"It's kind of a proof of concept that at last we've shown with field evidence that what a lot of people have said for many many decades should happen actually can happen," he said.

"That is to say that these areas do allow species that are being fished to build up in abundance inside these closed areas, these reserves, these green zones inside the Great Barrier Reef."

He says analysis of coral trout and snapper fingerlings in the Keppel Islands has found most of the fish settle within five kilometres of protected zones.

"Finally after 25 or 30 years we've finally proven it down at the Keppel Islands that these closed areas are not just connecting and producing animals or new babies that go out and help the fisheries, but they're doing it in a way, exactly the way you'd expect, they're punching above their weight so to speak," he said.